Word: vetoes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...surplus gives congressional spenders less room to operate. Had the Administration clung to its original aim of a $3 billion surplus for fiscal 1971, explains a top Budget Bureau official, the effect would have been to encourage Congress to raise its spending sights. More important, Nixon's successful veto of the Labor-HEW bill last week (see following story) and his threat to impound other funds that he considers excess will probably inhibit congressional spenders...
...rare festivity. Presidents have been known to celebrate the passage of a cherished piece of legislation; Nixon celebrated a bill's demise. He invited the 191 Representatives who had voted to sustain his veto of the Labor-HEW appropriation. He had challenged the Democratic-controlled Congress to a showdown over a fundamental issue-control of domestic policies...
...billion package had been passed overwhelmingly by both House and Senate. Because the bill had grown by $1.1 billion over Administration requests, Nixon proclaimed it inflationary and promised to veto it. Last week in a presidential first, he explained his case for ten minutes on network television and then, with a flourish of his audibly scratchy fountain pen, signed the veto order in prime time. "The issue," said Nixon, "is not whether some of us are for education and health and others are against it. The question is, how much can the Federal Government afford to spend on these programs...
...political lines of force. Yet the lines kept distorting into caricature: the free-spending, socially conscious heirs to the New Deal v. the business-minded, anti-inflation Nixonians. An army of 700 amateur education lobbyists converged on Capitol Hill, limning the social misery that would ensue unless the veto were overridden. Meantime the White House staff put intense pressure on House Republicans. Two days after the veto, House Democratic leaders fell 52 votes short of the two-thirds majority necessary to override the veto. With 226 members supporting the bill and 191 behind the Administration, the measure went back...
There seemed to be a particular political skill in Nixon's choosing this bill for his first veto, for it offered him a dramatic chance to hang the issue of inflation on the Democrats in preparation for the 1970 congressional elections. In fact, both sides seemed entirely too busy calculating political advantage to arrive at a sensible agreement. The settlement that must now be made may include congressional permission for the President to use his own judgment in spending the other funds...